Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with
John mimer a professor at University of
Chicago and one of the most influential
and controversial thinkers in the world
he teaches speaks and writes about the
nature of power and War on the global
stage in history and
today please allow me to say once again
my hope for this little journey am
on I will speak to everyone on all sides
with compassion with empathy and with
backbone I will speak with Vladimir
Putin and with vadimus zy with Russians
and with ukrainians with Israelis and
with Palestinians with
everyone my goal is to do whatever small
part I can to decrease the amount of
suffering in the world by trying to
reveal our common
Humanity I believe that in the end Truth
and Love
wins I will get attacked for being naive
for being a shill for being
weak I am none of those things but I do
make mistakes and I will get
better I love you
all this is Alex Freedman podcast to
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in the description and now dear friends
here's John
mammer can you explain explain your view
on power in international Politics as
outlined in your book The Tragedy of
great power politics and in your writing
since then yeah I make two sets of
points there first of all I believe that
power is the currency of international
relations and by that I mean that states
are deeply interested in the balance of
power and they're interested in
maximizing how much power they control
and the question is why States care so
much about power I in the International
System there's no higher authority so if
you get into trouble and you dial 911
there's nobody at the other end in a
system like that you have no choice but
to figure out for yourself how best to
protect yourself and the best way to
protect yourself is to be powerful to
have as much power as you can possibly
gain over all the other states in the
system therefore States care about power
because it enhances or maximizes their
prospects for survival second point I
would make is that in the real story or
in my story power is largely a function
of material factors uh the two ke key
building blocks of Power are population
size and wealth you want to have a lot
of people and you want to be really
wealthy of course course this is why the
United States is so powerful it has lots
of people and it has lots of wealth
China was not considered a great power
until
recently uh because it didn't have a lot
of wealth certainly had population size
but it didn't have wealth and without
both a large population and much wealth
you're usually not considered a great
power uh so I think power matters uh but
uh when we talk about power it's
important to understand that it's a
population size and wealth that are
underpinning it so there's a lot of
interesting things there first you said
nations in relation to each other are is
essentially in a state of anarchism yeah
well Anarchy basically means the
opposite of hierarchy sometimes people
think when you're talking about Anarchy
you're talking about murder and mayham
but that's not what Anarchy means in the
realist context Anarchy simply means
that you don't have hierarchy there's no
higher authority that sits above States
states are like pool balls on a table
right and in an anarchic world uh
there's no higher authority that you can
turn to uh if you get into trouble and
of course the political philosopher who
laid this all out was Thomas Hobbs and
Hobbs talked about life in the state of
nature and in the state of nature you
have
individuals and those individuals
compete with each other for power and
the reason that they do is because in
the state of nature by definition you
have no higher authority and hobbs' view
is that the way to get out of this
terrible situation where individuals are
competing with each other and even
killing each other is to create a state
it's what he calls the Leviathan and
that of course is the title of his
famous book so the idea is to escape
Anarchy you create a state and that
means you go from Anarchy to hierarchy
the problem in international politics is
that there is no world State there is no
hierarchy and if you have no hierarchy
and you're in an anarchic system you
have no choice but to try to maximize
your relative power power to make sure
you are as we used to say when I was a
kid on New York City playgrounds the
biggest and baddest dude on the Block
not because you necessarily want to beat
up on other kids or on other states but
because again that's the best way to
survive and as I like to point out to
people the best example of what happens
when you're weak in in National politics
is what the Chinese call the century of
national
humiliation from the late 1840s to the
late 1940s the Chinese were remarkably
weak and the great powers in the system
prayed upon them and uh that sends a
very important message to not only the
Chinese but to other states in the
system don't be weak be as powerful as
you can and we'll talk about it but
humiliation can lead to resentment and
resentment leads to uh something you've
also studied which is Nazi Germany in
the
1930s we'll talk about it um
but staying to the psychology and
philosophy
picture what's the connection between
the will to power in the individual as
you mentioned and the will to power in a
nation the will to power in an
individual has a lot to do with
individual's psychology uh the story
that I tell about the pursuit of power
is a structural argument it's an
argument that says when you are in a
particular structure when you're in a
system that has a specific
architecture which is
anarchy the states have no choice but to
compete for power uh so structure is
really driving the story here Will To
Power has a lot more to do with an
individual uh in in the nichan story
where that concept comes from so it's
very important to understand that I'm
not argu arguing that states are
inherently aggressive right my point is
that as long as states are in Anarchy
right they have no choice but to behave
in an aggressive fashion but if you went
to a hierarchic system uh there's no
reason for those states to worry about
the balance of power because if they get
into trouble there is a higher authority
that they can turn to there is in effect
the Leviathan so what is the role of
military might in this uh will to power
on the national level well military
might what ultimately matters as I said
to you before the two building blocks of
Power are population size and wealth you
didn't mention military money I did not
no that's right and it's good that you
CAU that because if you have a large
population and you're a wealthy country
what you do is you build a large
military and it's ultimately the size of
your military that matters uh because
militaries fight Wars and if states are
concerned about survival which I argue
is the principal goal of every state in
the International System for what I
think are obvious reasons then they're
going to care about having a powerful
military that can protect them if
another state comes after them what's
not obvious that a large Nation with a
lot of people and a a lot of money
should necessarily build a gigantic Army
and seek to attain
superpower like dominant sole superpower
status to military might but you're
saying as you see the world today it has
to be that way yeah I'm arguing it is
obvious if you're a state in the
International System uh do you want to
be weak uh if you live next door to Nazi
Germany or imperial Germany or napole
iic France or even the United States the
United States is a ruthless great power
you surely recognize that and if you're
dealing with the United States of
America and you're Vladimir Putin you
want to make sure you're as powerful as
possible so that the United States
doesn't put its gun sits on you and come
after you same thing is true with China
you want to be powerful in the
International System States understand
that and they go to Great Lengths to
become powerful just take the United
States of America when it started in
1783 it was comprised of 13 measly
colonies strung out along the Atlantic
Seaboard over time you know the uh
various leaders of the United States
went to Great Lengths to turn that
country into the dominant power in the
Western Hemisphere and then once that
was achieved in 1900 we've gone to Great
Lengths to make sure that there's no
peer uh competitor in the system uh we
just want to make sure that we're number
one uh and my argument is that this is
not peculiar to the United
States uh if I'm China for example
today I would want to dominate Asia the
way the United States dominates the
Western Hemisphere they'd be fools not
to if I were Imperial Germany I'd want
to dominate all of Europe the way the
United States dominates the Western
Hemisphere why because if you dominate
all of Europe assuming you're Imperial
Germany or Napoleonic France then no
other state in the area or in the region
can threaten you because you're simply
so
powerful uh and again what I'm saying
here is that the structure of the
International System really matters it's
the fact that you're in this anarchic
system where survival is your principal
goal and where I can't know your
intentions right you're another state I
can't know that at some point you might
not come after me you might and if
you're really powerful and I'm not I'm
in deep trouble yeah so some of the
ideas underlying what you've said uh
offensive realism which I would love to
talk to you about sort of the history of
realism versus liberalism but some of
the ideas you already mentioned uh
Anarchy between
states everybody's trying to develop a
military capabilities uncertainty such
an interesting concept uh States cannot
be sure that other states will not use
military capabilities against them which
is that's of enormous importance story
and so interesting because you also say
that this makes realist more cautious
and more
peaceful the
uncertainty because of all the
uncertainty involved here it's better to
approach International politics with
caution which is really interesting to
think about
uh again survival most States interested
in survival and the other interesting
thing is you assume all the states are
rational um which most of the time most
of the time you call this framework
offensive realism C can you just give a
overview of the history of the realism
versus liberalism debate as World Views
well I think for many centuries now the
big
divide uh within the world of
international relations
theory is between realism and liberalism
these are Tim honored bodies of theory
and before I tell you what I think the
differences are between those two bodies
of theory it is important to emphasize
that there are differences among
realists and differences among
liberals uh um and so when you talk
about me as an offensive realist you
should understand that there are also
defensive realists out there and there
are uh a panoply of liberal theories as
well but uh basically realists believe
that power matters that states compete
for power and that war is an instrument
of
statecraft and uh uh liberals on the
other hand have what I would say is a
more idealistic view of the world uh
this is not to say that they're naive or
foolish but they believe there are
aspects of international
politics uh that lead to a less
competitive and more peaceful world than
most realists see uh and I'll lay out
for you very quickly what are the three
major liberal theories today that I
think will give you a sense of the more
optimistic perspective that is inherent
in the liberal
Enterprise uh the first and most
important of the liberal theories is
democratic peace Theory and this is a
theory that says democracies do not
fight against other
democracies so the more the world is
populated with democracies the less like
ly it is that we will have
wars uh and this basic argument is
inherent in Francis fukiyama the end of
History he argues that democracy Triumph
first over fascism in the 20th century
it then triumphed over communism and
that means that in the future we're have
more and more liberal democracies on the
planet and if you have more and more
liberal democracies in those democ acies
don't fight each other then you have a
more peaceful world that was his
argument it's a very liberal argument a
realist like me would say that it
doesn't matter whether a state is a
democracy or not all states behave the
same way because the structure of the
system getting back to our earlier
discussion about International Anarchy
the structure of the system leaves those
States no choice whether they're democ
acies or autocracies and again the
liberal view this first liberal theory
is that democracies don't fight other
democracies and therefore the more
democracies you have the more peaceful
the world can I just uh sort of try to
unpack that a little bit so on the
Democratic peace Theory I guess would
say that in democracies leaders are
elected and the underlying assumption is
most people want peace and so they will
elect peace makers so the more you
democracies you have the more likely you
have peace and then the realist
perspective what says that it doesn't
matter if the majority of people want
peace the
structure of international politics is
such that superpowers want to become
more Super and powerful and they do that
through War you can't make that argument
that you're making about democracies
because if you're saying that
democracies are inclined toward peace
and the the electorate picks leaders who
are inclined towards peace then you have
to show that democracies are in general
more peaceful than non-democracies and
you can't support that argument you can
find lots of evidence to support the
argument that democracies don't fight
other
democracies so the argument I believe
that you have to make if you're going to
support Democratic peace Theory the main
argument you have to make
is that liberal
democracies have a healthy respect for
each other and they can assess each
other's intentions if you're a liberal
democracy and I'm a liberal democracy we
know we have value systems that argue
against aggression and argue for
peaceful resolution of Christ es and
therefore given these Norms we can trust
each other we can know each other's
intentions remember for realists like me
uncertainty about intentions really
helps Drive the train but if you're
talking about two
democracies right the argument there is
that they know each other's intentions
and for you sure maybe democracies
reduce uncertainty a little bit but not
enough to stop the train I think that's
right yeah that's that's right so that's
Democratic peace theory yes the second
theory is economic interdependence
Theory and that's the argument that in a
globalized world like the one that we
live in and have lived in for a long
time there's a great deal of economic
interdependence and if you and I are two
countries uh or if you inm two countries
and uh we're economically interdependent
and we're both getting prosperous as a
result of this economic intercourse the
last thing that we're going to do is
start a war either one of us because who
would kill the goose that lays the
golden eggs it's that kind of argument
so there you have an argument that
economic interdependence leads to peace
and then the third liberal argument has
to do with
institutions uh sometimes referred to is
liberal institutionalism and this is the
argument that if you can get States into
institutions where they become rule
abiding
actors they will obey the rule
that dictate that war is not
acceptable uh so if you get them to
accept uh uh the UN rules on when you
can and cannot initiate a war uh then
you'll have a more peaceful world so
those are the liberal theories and as
you can tell they're very different from
realism as articulated by somebody like
me can you uh maybe argue against the
economic interdependence and in the
institutions that institutions follow
rules um a little bit so the the the
Golden Goose with the golden egg you're
saying that nations are happy to kill
the goose because again they want Power
if they think it's necessary to kill the
Golden Goose yeah because of security
concerns they will do it the point is
that economic
interdependence at its root has
Prosperity as the core variable yeah in
the realist story The Core variable is
survival and survival always trumps
Prosperity so if you go back to the
period before World War I we're in
Europe it's
1913 or early 1914
what you see is that you have an intense
security competition between all of the
great powers on one side you have the
Triple Alliance and on the other side
you have the triple onon you have these
two alliances and you have an intense
security competition between them okay
at the same time you have a great deal
of economic interdependence it's amazing
how much economic intercourse is taking
place in Europe among all the actors
right people are getting prosperous or
countries are getting prosperous as a
result but nevertheless in the famous
July crisis of
1914 this economic Prosperity is unable
to prevent World War I because security
concerns or survival is more important
uh so there are you know going to be
lots of situations where prosperity and
survival come into conflict and in those
cases survival will win
and uh maybe you can speak to the
different camps of realists you said
offensive and defensive can you draw a
distinction between those two yeah let
me just back up a bit on that one and
you were talking about Will To Power
before uh the first big
divide between realists is structural
realists and human nature realists nice
and H
morganth who was influenced by nature
and
therefore had that will to power logic
embedded in his thinking about how the
world works right he was a human nature
realist okay I'm a structural
realist and I believe it's not human
nature it's it's not individuals and
some Will To Power that drives
competition and War what drives compet
ition in war is the structure of the
system it's Anarchy so you're not as
romantic as the human nature realists
yeah there's just a a world of
difference between the two sure it's
just important to understand that so
within that this from the structural
that there's a subdivision also of
offensive and defensive yes inside the
structural realist world right and you
have a handful of realists who believe
that the structure of the
system Fosters competition for sure
security competition but it really rules
out great power War almost all the time
so it makes sense to care about the
balance of power but to focus on
maintaining how much power you have
that's the defense of realism
maintaining how much power you have not
trying to gain more power because the
argument the defensive realists make is
that if you try to gain more power the
system will punish you the structure
will punish
you I'm not a defensive realist I'm an
offensive realist and my argument is
that states look for
opportunities to gain more power and
every time they see or almost every time
they see an opportunity to gain more
power um and they think the likelihood
of success is high and the cost will not
be great they'll jump at that
opportunity just to linger on the human
nature
perspective how do you explain Hitler
and Nazi
Germany uh just one of the more
recent
aggressive expansions through military
might how do you explain that in the
framework of uh offensive
realism well I think that Nazi Germany
was driven in large part by structural
considerations and I think if you look
at Imperial Germany which was largely
responsible for starting World War I and
of course Nazi Germany's largely
responsible for starting World War II
what that tells you is you didn't need
Adolf Hitler to start World War I right
and I believe that there is a good
chance you would have had World War II
in the absence of Hitler right I believe
that Germany was very powerful it was
deeply worried about the balance of
power in Europe and it had strong
incentives to behave
aggressively uh in in the late 1930s
early
1940s so I I believe that structure
mattered however I want to qualify that
in the case of Adolf Hitler because I do
think he had what you would call a Will
To Power I've never used that word to
describe him before but it's consistent
with my point that I often make that
there are two leaders or there have been
two leaders in modern history who are
congenital
aggressors uh and one was Napoleon and
the other was Hitler now if you want to
call that a Will To Power you can do
that I I'm more comfortable referring to
H As A congenital aggressor and
referring to Napoleon As A congenital
aggressor although there were important
differences between the two because
Hitler was probably the most murderous
leader uh in recorded history and
Napoleon was not in that category at all
uh but but both of them uh were uh
driven by what you would call a Will To
Power uh and that has to be uh married
to the structural argument in Hitler's
case and also in Napoleon's case is
there some degree on the human
psychology side that
resentment because of how because of
what happened after World War I led to
Hitler wielding so much power and then
Hitler starting World War II so this is
the The Human Side perhaps the reason I
asked that question is also because you
mentioned the century of humiliation on
the China side so to so to which degree
did
humiliation lead to Hitler and lead to
World War I well the question of what
led to Hitler is a very different
question than the question of what led
to World War II once Hitler was in power
I mean after January 30th 1933 he's in
power and then the question of what is
driving him comes racing to the four uh
is there resentment over the Versa
treaty and what happened to Germany yes
did that matter yes but my argument is
that structure was the principal Factor
uh driving the train in Hitler's case
but what I'm saying here is that there
were other factors well as well
resentment being one of them will to
power or the fact that he was A
congenital aggressor in my lexicon uh
certainly mattered as well so I I don't
want to dismiss um your point uh about
resentment so Hitler in particular the
way he wielded the way he gained so much
power might have
been the general resentment of the
populace of the German populace I think
that uh as a result of um defea in World
War I and all the trials and
tribulations associated with viar
Germany and then the coming of uh the
Great Depression all of those factors
definitely account for his coming to
power I think that one of the
reasons um that he was so successful at
winning over the German people once he
came to
power uh was because there was a great
deal of resentment uh in the German body
politic and he played on that resentment
that surely helped them get elected too
but I think having studied the
it was even more important once he took
over I also believe that one of the
principal reasons that he was so popular
and he was wildly popular inside Nazi
Germany is because he was the only
leader of an industrialized country who
pulled his country out of
depression uh and that really
mattered uh and uh it made him uh very
effective it's also worth noting that he
was a remarkably Charis Matic individual
uh I find that hard to believe because
every time I look at him or listen to
his speeches uh he does not appear to be
charismatic to me but uh I've talked to
a number of people who are experts on
this subject who assure me that he was
very charismatic and I would note to you
if you look at public opinion polls in
Germany West Germany in the late 1940s
this is the late 1940s after the Third
Reich is destroyed in 1945
he is still remarkably popular in the
polls Stalin is still popular in many
parts of Eastern Europe yeah yeah and
Stalin's popular in many quarters inside
Russia uh and Stalin murdered more of
his own people than he murdered people
outside of the Soviet Union and still to
you the ties of History turn not on
individuals but on structural
considerations so so Hitler may be a uh
surface
layer characteristics of how Germany
started a war but not the really the
reason well history is a
multi-dimensional phenomenon oh I hear
and we're talking about Interstate
relations here yes and realism is a
theory about how States interact with
each other and there are many other
dimensions to International politics and
if you're talking talking about someone
like Adolf Hitler right uh why did he
start World War II uh is a very
different question then why did he uh
start the Holocaust or why did he push
forward a holocaust I mean that's you
know a different question and realism
doesn't answer that question so I want
to be very clear that you know I'm not
someone who argues that realism answers
every question about International
politics but it does answer what is you
know one of the big if not the biggest
questions that IR Scholars care about
which is what causes security
competition and what causes great power
War does offensive realism answer the
question why
Hitler attacked the Soviet Union Yes
because from a military strategy
perspective you know there's pros and
cons to that decision pros and cons to
every decision the question is is did he
think that he could win a quick and
decisive Victory and uh he did I mean as
did his generals it's very interesting I
I've spent a lot of time studying German
decision making uh in World War II if
you look at the German decision um to
invade Poland on September 1st 1939 and
you look at the uh German decision to
invade France on May 10th 1940 and then
the Soviet Union on June 22nd 1941
what you see is there was actually quite
a bit of resistance to Hitler in
1938 at the time of jeos Slovakia Munich
and there was also quite a bit of
resistance in September
1939 internally or you mean internally
internally for sure yeah people had
doubts they didn't think the ver mock
was ready and given the fact that world
war one had just ended about 20 years
before the thought of starting another
European war was not especially
attractive to lots of German policy
makers including military
leaders and then came France 1940 in the
runup to May 10th 1940 uh there was huge
resistance uh in the uh German Army to
attacking France uh but that was
eventually eliminated because they came
up with a clever plan uh the man Stein
plan if you look at the decision to
invade the Soviet Union on June 22nd
1941 which is the only case where they
fail they succeeded in France they
succeeded in Poland they suceeded uh at
Munich in
1938 Soviet Union is where they fail
there's hardly any resistance at all
right yeah well and to say that they
failed the Soviet Union I mean my
grandfather F I mean from from the
Soviet Union you know there's a lot lot
of successes early on so there's poor
military I would say uh strategic
decisions along the way but it was uh it
caught Stalin offu
guard maybe you can correct me but from
my
perspective terrifyingly so they could
have been successful if certain
different decisions were made from a
military perspective yeah I I've always
had the sense they came terrifyingly
close to winning uh you can make the
opposite argument that they were doomed
uh but I I'm not terribly comfortable
making that argument I think the ver
mock by the summer of
1941 was a finally tuned instrument for
War and the Red Army was in quite
terrible shape uh Stalin had purged the
officer Corp uh they had performed po
poorly in Finland uh and uh there were
all sorts of reasons to think that they
were no match for the ver moed and if
you look at what happened in the initial
stages of the conflict that proved to be
the case uh the Germans won a lot of
significant tactical victories early on
and if they focused and went to Moscow
as quickly as possible it's again
terrifyingly so could have been uh
basically topple topple Stalin um and
one thing that's that's possible that's
possible fortunately we're not going to
run the experiment again but one could
argue that that had they concentrated as
the generals wanted to do in going
straight for Moscow that they would have
won I mean what Hitler wanted to do is
he he wanted to go into the Ukraine I
mean Hitler thought that the main axis
uh there were three axes the northern
axis went towards Leningrad the central
AIS of course went to Moscow and then
the southern Access Army group South uh
headed towards Ukraine and deep into the
caucuses and Hitler believed that uh
that that should have been the main axis
and in fact in
1942 the Soviets excuse me the Germans
go back on the offensive in 19 42 this
is Operation Blue and the main axis in
42 is deep into the Ukraine and into the
caucuses and that fails but one could
argue that had they done that in 41 had
they not gone to Moscow had they gone
you know had they concentrated on going
deep into Ukraine and into the caucuses
they could have knock the Soviets out
that way uh I'm I'm not sure that in the
end I believe that I I think in the end
the Soviets would have won no matter
what but I'm not 100% sure of that that
so sometimes um maybe you can educate me
but sometimes you know they say just
like when Napoleon winter defeated
Hitler in in Russia I think not often
enough people tell the story of the the
soldiers and the the motivation and how
hard they
fight so uh it turns out that ukrainians
and Russians are not easy to conquer
they're the kinds of people that don't
roll over and fight bravely there seems
to be a difference in certain people
peoples in how they see War how they
approach War how proud they are to fight
for their country to die for their
country these kinds of things so I think
Battle of staling gr tells at least to
me a story of extremely Brave fighting
on the Soviet side and that it's a
component of War I it's not just
structural it's not just military
strategy
it's also the humans involved but maybe
that's a romantic notion of war no I I
think there's a great deal of Truth in
that but let's just unpack it a bit in
the case of uh the Soviet Union in World
War II the counterargument to that um is
that in World War I the uh Russian army
disintegrated uh and uh if you look at
what happened when Napoleon and invaded
in
1812 and you look at what happened in
1917 and then you look at what happened
between 41 and
45 the Napoleon case looks a lot like
the Hitler case and it fits neatly with
your argument but World War I does not
fit neatly with your argument because
the Russians lost and surrendered yeah
and you had the infamous Treaty of BR
lovk where the Soviet Union then cuz
went from Russia to the Soviet Union in
October 1917 the Soviet Union
surrendered large amounts of uh Soviet
territory because it had suffered a
humiliating defeat my argument for why
the Russians let me take that back why
the Soviets fought like wild dogs in
World War II is that they were up
against a genocidal
adversary you want understand that the
Germans murdered huge numbers of Soviet
p
uh the overall total was 3.7 million and
by December December of 1941 remember
the invasion is June 41 by December of
1941 uh the Germans have murdered 2
million Soviet PS at that point in time
they had murdered many more PWS than
they had murdered Jews and this is not
to deny for one second that they were on
a murderous Rampage when it came to Jews
but they were also on a murderous
Rampage when it came to Soviet citizens
and Soviet soldiers right so those
Soviet soldiers quickly came to
understand that they were fighting for
their lives if they were taken prisoner
they would die so they fought like wild
dogs yeah you know the story of the
Holocaust of the 6 million Jews is often
told extensively if uh Hitler won
conquer the Soviet Union it's terrifying
to think on a much grander scam than the
Holocaust what what would have happened
to the Slavic people to the to the
Soviet people absolutely all you have to
do is read The Hunger plan right and
they also had had a plan uh what is it
called Grand planned East I forget the
exact name of it uh which made it clear
that they they were going to murder many
tens of millions of people and by the
way believe that they would have
murdered all the Poes and all the Roma I
mean my view is that the Jews were
number one on the genocidal Hit List the
Roma or the gypsies were number two and
the Poes were number three uh and of
course I just explained to you how many
PS they had killed so they would have
ended up murdering huge numbers of
Soviet citizens as well but people
quickly figured out that this was
happening mhm that's my point to you and
that gave them needless to say very
powerful incentives to fight hard uh
against uh the Germans and to make sure
that they did not win to fast forward in
time but not in
space let me ask you about uh the war in
Ukraine why did Russia invade Ukraine on
February 24th 2022
what are some of the explanations given
and which do you find the most
convincing well clearly the conventional
wisdom is that Putin uh is principally
responsible Putin is an imperialist uh
he's an expansionist that's the
conventional thinking yeah yeah and the
idea is that uh he he uh is bent on
creating a greater Russia uh and even
more so he's interested in dominating
Eastern Europe Europe if not all of
Europe um and that Ukraine was the first
stop on the train line uh and what he
wanted to do was to conquer all of
Ukraine uh incorporated into a greater
Russia and then he would move on and
Conquer other countries this is the
conventional wisdom my view is there is
no evidence uh let me emphasize zero
evidence to support that argument which
part does he would the imperialist part
the sense that he would he sought to
conquer all of Ukraine and move on and
Conquer there's no evidence he was
interested in conquering all of Ukraine
there was no interested there's no
evidence beforehand that he was
interested in coning conquering any of
Ukraine and there's no way that an army
that had
190,000 troops at the
most right could have conquered curred
all of Ukraine just impossible as I like
to emphasize when the Germans went into
Poland in
1939 uh and the Germans you want to
remember were only intent on Conquering
the Western half of Poland because the
Soviets uh who came in later that month
were going to conquer the eastern half
of Poland so the Western half of Poland
is much smaller than Ukraine and the
Germans went in with 1.5 million troops
uh if uh Vladimir Putin were bent on
conquering all of Ukraine he would have
needed at least two million troops I
would argue he'd need three million
troops because not only do he need to
conquer the country you then have to
occupy it uh but the idea that 190,000
troops was sufficient for conquering uh
all of Ukraine is not a serious argument
furthermore he was not interested in
conquering Ukraine and that's why in
March 2020 2 this is immediately after
the war starts he is negotiating with
zalinsky to end the war there are
serious negotiations taking place in
Istanbul involving the Turks and Naf
Tali Bennett who was the Israeli Prime
Minister at the time was deeply involved
in negotiating with both Putin and
zalinski to end the war well if he was
interested Putin in conquering all of
Ukraine why in God's name would he be
negotiating with zinski to end the war
and of course what they were negotiating
about was NATO expansion into Ukraine
which was the principal cause of the war
uh people in the west don't want to hear
that argument because if it is true
which it is then the West is principally
responsible for this bloodbath that's
now taking place and of course the West
doesn't want to be principally
responsible it wants to blame Vladimir
Putin so we've invented this story out
of whole cloth that he is an aggressor
that he's the second coming of Adolf
Hitler and that what he did in Ukraine
was try to uh to conquer all of it and
he failed but uh with a little bit of
luck he probably would have conquered
all of it and he'd now be in the Baltic
states and eventually end up uh
dominating all of Eastern Europe as I
said I think there's no no evidence to
support this so maybe there's a lot of
things to ask there maybe just to linger
on NATO
expansion what is NATO
expansion what is the threat of NATO
expansion and why is it such a concern
for
Russia
NATO was a mortal enemy of the Soviet
Union during the Cold War it's a
military Alliance which has at its heart
the United States of America which is
the most powerful State on the planet
it is perfectly understandable that
Russia is not going to want that
military Alliance on its doorstep here
in the United States we have as you well
know what's called the Monroe Doctrine
and that basically says no great powers
from Europe or Asia are allowed to come
into our neighborhood and form a
military alliance with anybody in this
neighborhood uh when I was young there
was this thing called the Cuban Missile
Crisis the Soviets had the audacity to
put nuclear armed missiles in Cuba we
told them in no uncertain terms that
that was not acceptable and that those
missiles had to be removed this is our
backyard and we do not tolerate distant
great Powers coming into our
neighborhood well what's good for the
goose is good for the gander and if we
don't like great Powers coming into our
neighborhood it's hardly surprising that
the Russians did not want want NATO on
their doorstep uh they made that
manifestly clear um when the Cold War
ended and they exacted a promise from us
that we would not expand NATO and then
when we started expanding NATO they made
it clear after the first trunch in 1999
that they were profoundly unhappy with
that they made it clear in 2004 after
the second trunch that they were
profoundly happy with that
expansion and then in April 2008 when
NATO announced that uh Ukraine and
Georgia would become part of NATO they
made it unequivocally clear not just
Putin that that was not going to happen
they were drawing a Red Line in the Sand
and it is no accident that in August
2008 remember the Bucharest Summit is
April 2008 and August 2008 you had a war
between Georgia and Russia and that
involved at its core NATO expansion so
uh the Americans and their allies should
have understood by at least August 2008
that continuing to push to bring Ukraine
into NATO was going to lead to disaster
and I would note that there were all
sorts of people in the 1990s like George
Kennan William Perry who was Bill
Clinton's Secretary of Defense the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Paul Nitza and so forth and so on who
argued that NATO expansion would end up
producing a disaster which it has I
would note that uh at the famous April
2008 Bucharest Summit where NATO said
that Ukraine would be brought into the
alliance Angela Merkel and uh Nicholas
sarosi the German and French leaders
respectively opposed that decision
Angela Merkel later said that the reason
she opposed it was because she
understood that Putin would interpret it
as a declaration of war just think about
that Merkel is telling you that she
opposed NATO expansion into Ukraine
because she understood correctly that
Putin would see it as a declaration of
war what did the United States and its
friend in friends in Europe do they
continue to push and push because we
thought that we could push NATO
expansion down their throat after 2008
the same way we did in 1999 and 2004 but
we were wrong and it all blew up in our
face in
2014 and when it blew up in our face in
2014 what did we do did we back off and
say well maybe the Russians have some
legitimate security interest no that's
not the way we operate we continue to
Double Down
and the end result is that in 2022 you
got a war and as I've argued for a long
time now we the West are principally
responsible for that not Vladimir Putin
so the expansion of NATO is primarily
responsible yeah to put it in more
general terms what we were trying to do
was turn Ukraine into a western bulwark
on Russia's border and it really wasn't
NATO expansion alone NATO expansion was
the most important element of our
strategy but the strategy had two other
dimensions one was EU expansion and the
third was the color
Revolution we were trying to for orange
revolution in Ukraine and the basic goal
there was to turn Ukraine into a
pro-western liberal
democracy and that meant that you'd have
Ukraine if it worked a pro-western
liberal democracy that was in the EU and
that was in NATO this was our goal and
the Russians made it unequivocally clear
Ukraine was not going to become a
Western bullwark on their border and
most importantly they made it clear that
Ukraine in NATO was
unacceptable can we talk about the mind
of Vladimir Putin you've mentioned that
this idea that he has aspirations
for uh imperialist
Conquest that he dreams of Empire is not
grounded in reality he wrote an essay in
2021 about one
people do you think there is some degree
to
which he still dreams of the former
Soviet Union
reuniting no he's made it clear that uh
anybody with a a triple digit IQ
understands that it's nuts to think
about recreating the Soviet
Union he thinks it's a tragedy that the
Soviet Union fell apart but as he made
clear in that essay the July 12th 2021
essay and as he made clear in speeches
before immediately before he invaded
Ukraine he
accepted uh the breakup of the Soviet
Union and he accepted uh the status quo
in in Europe safe for the fact he did
not accept the idea that Ukraine would
become part of NATO he's been in power
for over two decades is there a degree
that power can
affect a Leader's ability to see the
world
clearly as they say
corrupt um do you think po has corrupted
of Vladimir Putin to a degree it's very
hard for me to answer that question
because I I don't know him and I've not
studied him carefully uh in terms of his
overall performance over the course of
you know the 23 years that he's been in
power um I've studied him as a
strategist and I've studied how he you
know deals with the West uh and you know
deals with the International System more
generally uh since 2014
and I think he is a first class
strategist this is not to say he doesn't
make
mistakes uh and he admits he's made some
mistakes uh U but uh I think that the
West is dealing with a formidable
adversary here uh and I don't see any
evidence that he's either lost speed off
his fast ball or that power has
corrupted his thinking about strategic
Affairs so he has consistently put as a
primary concern
security as does the United States he's
put for Russia security making sure that
NATO doesn't get close to its borders I
think that's clear yeah I I think as I
emphasized early on in our conversation
that leaders privilege security or
survival over everything else and by the
way he he gave a number of talks uh and
press
conferences uh in addition to writing
that famous article that you referred to
on July 12th 2021 so we have you know a
pretty clear record of what he was
saying and I would argue what he was
thinking in the runup to the war in
February
2022 and if you read uh what he said uh
it's quite clear that he privileged
security or survival he was deeply
concerned about the security of Russia
and Russia is a quite vulnerable state
in a lot of ways especially if you think
back to what it looked like in the 1990s
is you know better than I do uh it was
in terrible shape uh the Chinese talk
about the century of national
humiliation one could argue that for the
Russians that was the decade of national
humiliation and um and it took Putin I
think quite a bit of time to bring the
Russians back from the dead I think he
eventually succeeded but uh it took a
considerable amount of time and I think
he understood that he was not playing a
particularly strong hand he was playing
something of a weak hand and he had to
be very careful very cautious and I
think he was uh and I think that's very
different than the United States the
United States was the unipole it was the
most powerful state in the history of
the world most powerful State relative
to all its possible competitors from you
know roughly 1989 certainly after
December 1991 when the Soviet Union fell
apart up until I would argue about 2017
we were incredibly powerful and even
after
2017 up to today the United States
Remains the most powerful state in the
system and because of our geographical
location uh we are in a uh terrific
uh situation to survive in any great
power competition so uh you have a
situation involving the United States
that's different than the situation
involving Russia they're they're just
much more vulnerable uh than we are and
and therefore I think Putin tends to be
more sensitive about security uh than
any American president in recent Times
Europe on one side China on the other
side it's a complicated situation
yeah and we talked before about 1812
when Napoleon invaded and Moscow got
burned to the ground we talked about
World War I where the Russians were
actually defeated uh and surrendered uh
and then we talked about 1941 to 1945
where although thankfully uh the Soviets
prevailed uh it was uh it was a close
call and I mean the casualties the
destruction that the Soviet
Union uh had inflicted on it by the
Germans is just almost almost hard to
believe
just uh so they are sensitive you can
understand full well or at least you
should be able to understand full well
why the idea of bringing Ukraine up to
their border really spooked them uh I
don't understand why more Americans
don't understand that it just it it
befuddles me I think it to do with the
fact that Americans are not very good in
putting themselves in the shoes of other
countries uh and uh you really if if
you're going to be a first class
strategist in international politics you
have to be able to do that you have to
put yourself in the shoes of the other
side and think about how they think so
you don't make foolish mistakes and as a
starting point Americans tend to see
themselves as the good guys and a set of
others as the bad guys and you have to
be able to empathize that
Russians think of themselves as the good
guys the Chinese think of themselves as
the good guys and just be able to
empathize if they are the good guys it's
like that uh funny skit are we the
baddies consider the United States could
be the bad guys like first of all EMP
like see the world if the United States
is the bad guys and China is the good
guys what does that world look like be
able to just exist with that thought
because that is what the Chinese
leadership and many Chinese citizens uh
if not now maybe in the future will
believe and you have to kind of do the
calculation the simulation forward from
that and same with Russia same with with
other nations yeah I agree with you 100%
and just you know I always think of
Michael McFall at Stanford who was the
American ambassador to uh Russia I think
between 2012 and
2014 and uh he he told me that he told
Putin uh that Putin didn't have to worry
about NATO expansion because the United
States was a benign
hegemon and uh I asked Mike what Putin's
response was to that and uh Mike said
that Putin didn't believe it uh and uh
but Mike believed it he should believe
it and that we could move NATO Eastward
to include Ukraine and in the end we'
get away with it because we are a benign
heiman but the fact is that's not what
Putin saw Putin saw us as a malign
hedgemon and what Mike thinks or any
American thinks doesn't matter what
matters is what Putin thinks but also
the drums of War have been beating for
some reason NATO expansion has been
threatened for some reason so you've
talked about NATO expansion being
dead so like it doesn't make sense from
a geop political perspective on the
Europe side to expand NATO uh but
nevertheless that threat has been uh
echoed so um why has NATO expansion been
pushed from your perspective there are
two reasons one is first of all we
thought it was a wonderful thing uh to
bring more and more countries into NATO
we thought that it facilitated peace and
prosperity it was ultimately all for the
goodh um and uh we also thought that uh
uh countries like Ukraine had a right to
join NATO these are sovereign countries
that can decide for themselves and the
Russians have no say in what Ukraine
wants to do and then finally and uh this
is a point I emphasized before we were
very powerful and we thought we could
shove it down their throat so so it's a
combination of those factors that led us
to pursue what I think was ultimately uh
a foolish
policy we've talked about how Wars get
started how do you hope the war in
Ukraine ends what are the ways to end
this war what are the ways to achieve
peace there to uh end the
the I would say senseless
death of young men as always happens in
War I I'm sad to say I don't have a good
answer to that um I I don't think
there's any real Prospect of a
meaningful peace agreement I think it's
almost
impossible uh I I think the best you can
hope for uh at this point is it's some
some point the shooting stops you have a
ceasefire and then you have a frozen
conflict uh and that Frozen conflict uh
will not be highly stable uh and uh the
U ukrainians and the West will do
everything they can to weaken Russia's
position uh and the Russians will go to
Great Lengths to not only damage that
dysfunctional rum state that Ukraine
becomes but the Russians will go to
Great Lengths to so dissension within
the alliance and uh and that includes in
terms of transatlantic relations so
you'll have this
continuing security competition between
Russia on one side and Ukraine and the
West on the other even when you get a
frozen
peace uh and um or you get a frozen
conflict and uh and and and the
potential for escalation there will be
great uh so I think this is a disaster
that's a a very realist perspective let
me ask you sort of a the The Human Side
of it do you think there's some power to
leader sitting down having a
conversation man to man leader to leader
about this there's there there is just a
lot of death
happening it seems that from an economic
perspective from a historic perspec